To call "The Wrath of Khan" generic action is pretty unfair, especially when compared against it's clone/reboot "Into Darkness". TWOK opens with Kirk pondering his own mortality and some of the universal concerns of aging. ID opens with a Spock apparently deciding to off himself, with no real motivation or development of that decision given. We can quibble about the intervening parts but for my part I find the action and suspense in TWOK much better, and more importantly, logically motivated. What was the point of the entire battle on Q'onos in ID, other than to just look cool? What sort of character development occured between Kirk and Spock?
Finally, we get to the end, and the most egregious difference between the two. In TWOK we get a tense cat and mouse chase through the nebula, which is won, CRUCIALLY, by out-thinking your opponent. The whole "2d thinking" thing and what not. I admit it's probably not the most air-tight of plot points, but it perfectly demonstrates the difference between the two movies, because ID ends with a loud (visually and sonically) fist-fight that is won by the person who punches hardest. Yay I guess.
Anyway, Star Trek is definitely not all sunshine and rainbows but it is crucially several things that the new movies are not: It prioritizes communication and curiousity over violence and dominance. It is not trying to be cynical or "edgy" in an attempt to be mature. The struggle of people working together to overcome a problem and find a positive solution or compromise can and is every bit as exciting as a phaser battle. And finally, that it is fundamentally optimistic, not in a the sort of "magic technology makes everything awesome" way that the new series seems, but that humans can come together and make things better for each other, the no-win scenario does not exist (mostly) and that we have to work hard to make this come true, but it is do-able.